Is the world ready to forgive Michael Richards? Well, his former co-star Jerry Seinfeld is, at least.

Richards, who busted down Jerry's door countless times back in the '90s as wacky neighbor Kramer on the mega-hit "Seinfeld," effectively killed his career in 2006 by going on an ugly racist tirade during a stand-up comedy gig, dropping the N-word on a heckler. The actor hasn't shown his face in public much ever since, but he reappears on the latest installment of Seinfeld's web series "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" to reunite with his old pal.

You can watch the episode in full above, with Seinfeld and Richards tooling around L.A. in a rusted-out VW van and reminiscing. But the key segment comes about 14 minutes in, when Richards opens up about how devastated he was following his public meltdown. "I busted up after that event... it broke me down," he reveals. "It was a selfish response. I took it too personally. And I should have just said, 'Yeah, you're absolutely right. I'm not funny. I think I'll go home and work on my material.'"

Richards thanks Seinfeld for sticking by him through all the controversy and being a good TV friend. But Jerry encourages him to get rid of that psychological baggage and move on: "It's up to you to say, 'You know what? I've been carrying this bag enough. I'm gonna put it down.'" And the clip ends with a nice redemptive moment of Richards making fans laugh and Jerry telling him to get back into showbiz. We couldn't agree more; just watching him here reminds us how much we miss that hipster doofus.